Maternity

It is now widely accepted that the foundations for virtually every aspect of human development – physical, intellectual and emotional – are laid down in pregnancy and early childhood.  The physical and mental wellbeing of the mother, foetal exposures in the womb and early childhood experience have lifelong impacts on many aspects of health and wellbeing – from obesity, heart disease and mental health, to educational achievement and economic status.  There are around 17,000 babies born in Kent each year.

See also our pages on children and young people and sexual health.

Some of the reports on this page may not be suitable for users for assistive technology. Request an accessible format .

Our resources

Our resources

Data and reports

A range of data can be found in the 'starting well' section of our Health and Social Care Maps.

We have produced an analysis of the quality of maternity services (PDF, 2.6 MB).  The Maternity Services Review (PDF, 1.7 MB) provides a detailed analysis of the relationship between Public Health and maternity services with respect to the delivery of the antenatal and postnatal elements of the Health Child Programme.


We have also produced the following needs assessments:

We also publish breastfeeding statistics (XLSX, 246.9 KB) on first feed, at the new-born visit and the six to eight week check.


Library services

The Public Health and Social Care Library can provide access to library and knowledge services, including books and journal articles relating to maternity and infant health. We can also produce bespoke literature searches.


Requests

If you can't find what you were looking for, we complete over 200 ad-hoc requests for analysis each year. Request further analysis or a literature search or contact us.
External resources

External resources

A number of organisations produce statistics relating to maternal and child health, both at national and local level.